BEAUTIES OF

MILTON, POPE, THOMSON, AND GRAY.

BEAUTIES OF

MILTON, POPE, THOMSON, AND GRAY.

Milton.

ADDRESS TO LIGHT.

HAIL, holy Light! offspring of heaven, first-born! Or of the eternal co-eternal beam!

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn; while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,

Taught by the heavenly muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare! Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp: but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song: but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equal'd with me in fate,
(So were I equal'd with them in renown !)
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides:
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine:
But clouds instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me: from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge, and disperse; that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

EVE'S REMEMBRANCE OF HER CREATION.

That day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awaked, and found myself reposed

Under a shade, on flowers; much wondering where,
And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence, a murmuring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread

Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved,
Pure as the expanse of heaven: I thither went,
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite

A shape within the watery gleam appear'd,
Bending to look on me: I started back;
It started back: but pleased I soon return'd;